File sharing and data management, in general, is a problem today. With all of the various types of files on different devices such as personal computers, personal digital assistants, or cellular phones, the management of data in an efficient manner from device-to-device is a challenge for users.
In the context of data files in general, files worked on at one location by a user may not be accessible from a device at another location. For example, a user working at home may have files left there on a home computer that are not accessible from a computer at work. Data on one device may be lost because the user failed to regularly back-up the data files on the device. In other situations, short of forwarding each file or email to another account, switching accounts at an internet service providers may cause a user to lose their emails and other personal files resident on that ISPs server. All of these problems with data portability, management, and access create inefficiencies for a user.
Some known systems have tried to address these issues. In the photo sharing context, websites such as Ofoto have allowed users to load files to the Ofoto website to share among multiple devices and multiple users. This does allow some access to images when the user is not at his/her home computer and to share photos with users at remote locations. The sharing of files, however, among multiple users is typically limited to low-resolution versions of the original images, and this sharing of lower quality files may cause a user difficulty in viewing the image. Additionally, there is no data persistence as the files on the server may be deleted after a certain period of inactivity. In systems where users use peer-to-peer sharing or email picture files to each other, images may be lost or hard to track down because the original email was lost or poorly organized among the users files. Additionally, dynamic updating of shared files is not present. The data or file is copied one time and is then static on the sharee's system.